Grown Men in Costume
by ofcatsandwomen
Summary: The sequel to Revenge by Deodorant where we learn about Dakota North's connection to the gorilla gram business, and Matt Murdock's take on Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Foggy guest stars. Coming soon: Secret Santa, the last part of the trilogy.


Notes:  
This is the sequel to Revenge by Deodorant so reading that fic first is strongly recommended. This story will continue in the super-sized (from the looks of it) "Christmas special" Secret Santa, which will be posted in late November. If I had known this was going to be a trilogy, I would have published the entire story in chapters, but I didn't know when I wrote Revenge by Deodorant that the whole idea would continue to grow to the extent that it has. So, my apologies for the confusion.

Thank you for reading and commenting!**  
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**Grown**** Men in Costume**

Matt expected to meet Becky in the front office as he entered, but instead found it temporarily abandoned and quiet. Well, _relatively_ quiet. There was, after all, no such thing as complete quiet in his world. Not since someone – God? fate? – had seen it fit to turn out the lights and crank up the volume. All the way up. But he did hear water running in the pipes in the bathroom and the distinct sounds of someone moving around in there. Foot steps. That meant it couldn't be Becky. It wasn't Foogy either, the steps weren't heavy enough. As if on cue, he heard how the mystery person, whom he now knew to be Dakota, started humming the theme song to some show on TV that he couldn't quite identify. She came out just as he opened the door to his office.

"Hey, Matt! You're back already? I didn't even have time to start working on that special request of yours."

"Oh, there's no rush. I just wanted to know if you knew where to turn. Otherwise I'd have to figure out some other way. Where is everyone, by the way?"

"Well, Becky had a dentist's appointment and Foggy isn't back from lunch yet. He should be here any minute, though."

"Yeah, I guess I'm the one who's early." As he walked into his office, Matt heard Dakota follow and felt her presence behind him as he headed towards his desk and set down the plastic bag of newly purchased items on top of it. Walking around the desk, he reached through the darkness to where he sensed the back of his chair to be, pulled it out and sat down. On the other side of the desk, Dakota followed suit by lowering herself into one of the chairs normally reserved for clients.

"Sorry to just barge in on you like this, but as you can probably guess, I just had to ask about the whole business with the gorilla-gram, and… Oooh, cute paper!" The roll of wrapping paper was more than half way out of the bag already, and it looked like it was about to fall to the floor any second when Dakota grabbed it and put it safely back where it belonged.

"Yeah, I certainly hope so." Matt smiled at her reaction and was actually quite surprised to hear her use the word "cute." She was, after all, a pretty tough cookie, and didn't seem like the girly type. Then again, they didn't really know each other that well yet, and maybe there were hidden sides to her personality that he had yet to unveil.

"So, how did you…? Well, how do you know what it _looks_ like?" she half-whispered. Dakota was confused. They hadn't discussed it in so many words, but she suspected this might be another one of those mysterious Daredevil powers.

"I_ don't_," he jokingly whispered back. "But I have a pretty good idea. Let's just say I called in a favor. I bumped into an acquaintance of mine down at the store, and while he can be something of a goof ball, I really had no choice but to trust him on this one. But, unless that paper is green with pictures of Rudolph on it, he has some serious explaining to do." Matt wasn't too worried, though. He most likely would have known if Peter had been lying, and even though his lie-detecting skills weren't _completely_ fool proof, he knew that Peter wouldn't have the guts to pull a fast one on him. He always got the feeling that Peter was slightly intimidated by him, which wasn't an entirely bad thing.

"No, that's good ol' Rudolph all right. Red nose and everything. Though I have to tell you something." She leaned forward, as if she were about to let him in on some really important secret. "That story always bothered me a little. If you ask me, something's not quite right with Rudolph."

"What, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer? He's an American icon, a classic figure in modern folklore! Not to mention someone for the other reindeer to look up to; a pillar of his community, one might say. And the whole 'strength through difference' theme… I mean, as a guy who can't pick out his own wrapping paper, I feel totally empowered just _thinking_ about him. You might even say he's my personal hero." Okay, so maybe he was spreading it on a little thick, but he knew that Dakota was already well familiar with his brand of witty sarcasm.

"That's hilarious… Yeah, _really_ funny." Dakota tried her very best to sound serious, but found it hard not to smile. In fact, just seeing Matt in such a good mood was a really great thing. She had first come into contact with him when he was at what might quite possibly have been the low-point of his life, so this was certainly a nice change. "Okay, I get how you feel that you and Rudolph have something in common, in a very twisted sort of way, but I'm just saying that I don't think that story paints a very pretty picture of humanity, or…" She had to think about that one for a while. _Reindeerity?_ "… reindeer."

"So you're telling me that you don't like the story because it doesn't paint a pretty picture of reindeer? I can certainly see how that would be deeply disturbing."

"Well, it's like this. In the beginning, all the other reindeer are being complete bullies, making fun of Rudolph because of his red nose. Then he becomes best friends with Santa, and pretty much saves Christmas and all that, right?"

"Yes, that's how the story usually goes."

"Well, after he becomes friends with Santa he's suddenly the hottest new reindeer on the block, and everyone wants to be friends with him."

"Well, I can certainly see why that would be a problem for him." Matt tried not to sound too sarcastic.

"But doesn't it strike you as incredibly _fake_? Have they really accepted him for who he _is_, or do they just like him 'cause he's friends with _Santa_?"

"Huh… What I find interesting is how a certain hard-boiled private investigator, who we both know encounters real-life bullies and scum on a regular basis, would be upset by the questionable sincerity of Santa's reindeer."

"Well, when you put it _that_ way. Okay, so maybe, just maybe, I'm over-reacting just a tad. _Or_ maybe I rely on fairy tales as a means of escaping the harsh realities of everyday life," Dakota replied calmly, feigning a sudden moment of introspection.

"Maybe you should have been a psychologist?" Matt flashed her a mischievous smile as he leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest.

"Hey, maybe I should take up writing children's books?" She mirrored his movements and gave him a defiant look that she quickly realized he probably couldn't pick up on.

"I'm sure the world would appreciate an updated version of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer were all the little reindeer go into counseling together to explore their own insecurities and together come to the realization that their real problem is Santa, the guy who is making them compete for his affection. However, I would prefer it if you decided to stay put. I don't know what we would do around here without you, and I can't even begin to tell you how much your help has meant to me personally. Besides, who else do I know with ties to the gorilla-gram business?"

"Speaking of which, what's up with that? That's what I really want to know." At this, she leaned forward again and made a futile attempt to establish eye contact. She'd always been big on locking eyes with people, whether they were crooks she sought to intimidate or friends she wanted to feel close to, and she was still getting used to not being able to with Matt.

"Well, my next-door neighbor has some issues related to personal hygiene, and I decided to buy him a maximum strength deodorant, for the sake of my own sanity."

"Ouch, that's not very nice!"

"Normally, I would agree with you. However, this guy is something of a bully, and having been on the receiving end of that kind of thing – me and Rudolph both, incidentally – I have no qualms about paying him back for being the mean bastard that he is. The cute wrapping paper and the gorilla-gram are just touches to add to the humiliation. I could just tell him that he reeks or I could send a clear message and take him down a notch. Besides, going the anonymous gorilla-gram route would probably also make him a little paranoid. He won't know who it's from, and that actually makes it more likely that he'll use it. The other stuff I can ignore. He's the kind of guy who acts as if he's read the book on political correctness, and then purposely decided to do the exact opposite, but that's just annoying. It's his smell that offends me, and I want to be able to breathe the air outside my front door."

"You've obviously put a lot of thought into this."

"Not as much as you'd think. I'm pretty much playing it by ear. I'm curious to hear about your gorilla-gram connection though. I won't deny that I half-expected you to know someone, but it was still something of a surprise when you actually did."

"The connection is my cousin's father-in-law. He used to make heavy-duty full-body costumes for various theme parks and special events. We're not talking just your average Halloween outfit here, but the kind of gear you'd see on a team mascot or something. Anyway, he started many years ago, making everything from Mickey Mouse to Easter Bunny costumes. He was doing pretty well for himself too, and went even bigger when he branched into the consumer market."

"What kind of market would that be?" Matt found it hard to believe that any significant number of people would want to run around dressed up as the Easter Bunny just for the fun of it. Then again, he ran around at night dressed as a devil, so perhaps he shouldn't be so quick to judge.

"Well," Dakota cleared her throat before she went on, "have you ever heard of 'furries'?"

"_Furries?_ No I can't say I have. Is that something on TV? I usually only catch the news…" Of all the things Dakota was likely feeling at that moment, the one emotion that stood out the most to Matt was embarrasment. Her heart was beating fast, she was probably blushing, and her voice was a dead giveaway. She was clearly not comfortable talking about this. Of course, that only served to pique his curiosity. As much as he hated to admit it to himself, he couldn't wait to see where this was going.

"Yeah… Well, furries, or 'furry fans', are people who get a kick out of dressing up in animal costumes. It's a subculture. I don't know what they do really but I guess it puts them in touch with their primitive side or something." Dakota watched the mix of amusment and shock on Matt's face, and decided to go on. "From what I hear, some people even get off on it, you know, _sexually_." She spoke the last sentence in a half-whisper. She hadn't known him very long, but was pretty sure that Matt wasn't a prude. Still, the subject was a little weird.

"Please tell me you're kidding. That is just bizarre…" Although Matt was definitely baffled by this piece of information, he found the idea both funny and oddly comforting. Suddenly, the whole Daredevil business was starting to sound a whole lot more normal. At least _he_ didn't dress up as a furry animal, and he certainly didn't derive any form of physical pleasure from it. Well, other than the occasional satisfaction of a particularly well-aimed blow.

"Well, in defense of the furries, not all of them are so-called 'furverts.' That would be the latter category, in case you're wondering." Dakota took a deep breath before she continued, getting back to what all of this had to do with her gorilla-gram connection. "So, anyway, this connection of mine…"

"Your cousin's father-in-law?"

"Right. He started selling his costumes online, and got a lot of business from the furry crowd. He even went to conventions…" Noticing how Matt raised his right eyebrow in understated surprise, she added "Yes, they apparently have conventions."

"You know, I'm just loving the fact that you seem to know _everything_. This is all completely new to me."

"Well, _believe_ me, I would never have known about this if it weren't for this guy. I was as shocked as you when I first heard about it. But, as I was saying, this guy's costume business was going well when he decided that the whole thing was getting too weird for him. I mean, he was into costumes, but he wasn't exactly _into_ costumes, if you know what I mean. He decided that he wanted more control over the whole process. He saw his creations as a form of artistic expression, and decided that he wanted more influence over how they were used."

"So, I guess that led him to the gorilla-gram business?"

"Yes, exactly. They do all kinds of costumed deliveries. And he's not crazy about the whole half-naked women jumping out of cakes thing, but he does that too. He can't afford not to. There's apparently a lot of money to be made in the bachelor party market. As for the costumes, they have all kinds. The gorilla-gram is obviously a classic, but if you'd want to send your neighbor a big bunny or Winnie the Pooh, or something, he probably has that too."

"Hmm, I hadn't even considered other options. Can you check to see what he's got? You don't have to do it right now, of course, this is not a priority in any way. It's a private matter after all." There were obviously endless possibilities here, and Matt was intrigued by the idea that he might be able to do one better than the gorilla-gram. Still, this was a law office with actual clients, and doing some real work might not be such a bad idea.

"Well, I just about finished what I was working on when you came in, and I could think of worse things to do on my coffee break. I'll just do a quick check and see what I find, okay?" Dakota got back up and headed for the door.

"If you want to, I'd definitely appreciate it." Matt smiled a little to himself, before being brought back to reality by the mess on his desk. Lately, stuff had been piling up, and while he was normally impeccable in the neatness department – something Foggy had been cracking jokes about since college – he had let things slide lately. Heightened senses or not, there was something to be said for keeping things clearly labeled and in the right place. Things did have a tendency to hide in plain sight and it wasn't as if he could tell different case files apart by smell. He let out a deep sigh and reached for the first anonymous stack of papers. There was no sense in putting it off any longer, unless… Was that Foggy coming back from lunch?

Foggy popped his head in the door. "Hey, Matt. Where's Becky? Was she at the dentist's or something?"

"Yeah, that's what Dakota said. It seems no one ever tells me these things. Or maybe they do and I've just got too much going on to remember any of it." Matt placed the first pile of paper in the filing cabinet with a sigh.

"Well, having two jobs will do that to you." Foggy walked into the room bringing with him a distinct molecular trace from the Thai food place down the block.

"So was the green curry any good?"

"You are such a show-off. But, yeah it was okay. Say, what's Dakota up to? She's got a completely weird look on her face."

"She's working on a little secret project, for which I take full responsibility."

"Okay…?" Foggy was waiting for Matt to volunteer more information, but wasn't exactly holding his breath. Matt could be a little secretive when he wanted to. Obviously.

"It's nothing big, and I promise I'll tell you all about it later. But, speaking of which, have you ever heard of 'furries'?"

"No… I don't think so. What does that mean?"

"Okay, so I'm obviously not the only one. That's good to know."

Well, are you going to tell me?"

"I think maybe we should save that conversation for later too. This day has been weird enough already."

"Okay, I'm letting you off the hook. For _now_."

Before Foggy even made it out of Matt's office, they both heard Dakota call out from the other room. "Okay, I found it! They have this photo gallery with all the different costumes, you guys should definitely come take a look at this. This is gold!"

Matt got up from his desk and felt his partner's hand hone in on his shoulder as he approached him. At this distance, he could clearly pick out the galangal root and thai basil. It was almost like the culinary equivalent to second-hand smoke.

"So, Matt. Does this mean you're getting a new costume or something? I wish you would have told me."

"Well, to avoid any future identity problems, I've decided to kill off Daredevil and replace him with something a little edgier. I'm thinking either Big Bird or the Cookie Monster. Of course, there's the small problem of copyright infringement to consider, but we're lawyers. We'll figure something out, right?"

"Okay, that's cute. But if it's not related to this 'alternative lifestyle' of yours, then what's it about?"

"Like I said, I'll tell you the whole story later. Let's first go check this out."

"Okay guys, grab a cup of coffee and pull up a chair." Dakota sounded downright giddy.

"I have no idea what you guys are up to, but count me in. I'm getting a cup of coffee, should I pour you one too, Matt?" Foggy was used to expecting the unexpected and had learned to just roll with it.

"Sure, I'll have one. This could take a while, right?" Matt grabbed a seat next to Dakota, feeling the heat of her body to his left and the slightly fainter heat coming from the glow of the computer screen on his face.

"Here you go" Foggy held out Matt's cup while taking a first sip from his own. "Now what do we have here? This is certainly different."

"I know, isn't it great? Check out that parrot suit…" Dakota shook her head a little as she shot the now seated Foggy an amused glance, and both of them let out a little chuckle.

Matt cleared his throat. "So, does this show come with audio commentary or what?"

"Oh God, I'm sorry. Of course." Dakota clicked on the first page of three that made up the costume gallery. Each page had twelve different costumes on it, and she wondered if she should go through each one. Maybe it was a little redundant, but it didn't seem fair not to. "Okay, there are, I think, thirty different outfits to choose from with twelve on each page. I'll just do a quick overview, and you tell me if anything strikes you as interesting."

"Sounds good to me. Shoot." Matt took a sip of his coffee and found it to be more than satisfactory. But there was no reason to suspect otherwise. He made a point to always empty the pot when it started to turn sour. Their coffee budget was through the roof, but at least it was always good.

"Okay, we have three different gorillas. One white, one dark brown, and one that looks like a Curious George rip-off. I'm stilly pretty sure it's supposed to be a gorilla though. Then we have two bunnies in different colors, a tiger, and a bobcat. Then there's that parrot, which is actually pretty funny-looking. The last four are Barney, his annoying side-kick, a snowman and what looks like the Marshmallow Man from that Ghostbusters movie."

"So far so good. Barney is that purple dinosaur the kids like, right?" Matt had no idea what Barney looked like, but he did make a point of keeping up with popular culture.

"Yeah, some of them anyway. Not a huge Barney fan myself. But did you ever see Ghostbusters?" Dakota clicked ahead to the next page.

"Yes, and no. It came out after my accident, but Foggy and I rented it in college. You may not know this Dakota, but this guy here is an excellent narrator. You should hear his rendition of Animal House. I'm not sure it was entirely _thruthful_, but it was a lot of fun. What do you say Foggy, do you have anything you want to confess, while we're on the subject?" Matt knew that Foggy had taken certain liberties with some of the movies they'd watched together. But then again, he was pretty sure that even back then Foggy knew that Matt probably suspected as much. It was more like an inside joke than anything else.

"Hey, I don't even know what you're talking about!" Foggy laughed at the memory. After all these years, and after finding out the truth about Matt, he actually found some degree of comfort in the fact at least those moments were real. For all his abilities, Matt really _couldn't _watch movies the same way as everyone else. "And, just for the record, I still maintain that all the characters from Animal House really were actual animals with voice-overs."

"Yeah, right. Whatever you say…I'm sorry Dakota, what's on the next page?"

"Well, this looks like the Disney section. We have Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Pluto, and what looks like Simba from the Lion King. Then there are the Warner Brothers characters. We have Elmer Fudd, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Road Runner and Tweety. The last two are Tom and Jerry, respectively."

"Okay, so far I think Tweety might be a nice choice, but let's see if there's anything else."

"Okay, here we go, last page." Dakota clicked the forward button and laid eyes on just about the funniest costume she'd ever seen. Foggy seemed to think so too, because he just barely managed not to squirt coffee through his nose. "Oh my God!"

Both Foggy and Dakota were laughing so hard they could barely speak, which naturally added to Matt's curiosity and his ever so slight frustration at not being able to see what all the fuss was about. "Seriously guys, you've gotta tell me. You're _killing_ me with this. What's so funny?"

Dakota managed to get her act together long enough to squeeze out "It's Miss Piggy…" Her words were a mere wimper and she had to pause to take a breath.

"Yeah?" This was already good, but Matt had the distinct feeling there was more.

"She's in a bikini." Dakota allowed herself another chuckle before getting it together. "I'm telling you Matt, I don't think I've seen anything this tasteless in my entire life. I'm not even sure anyone would be allowed outside in that costume, There has got to be laws against that kind of thing, right?"

"Well, actually Dakota, that would depend. I'm pretty sure you could get away with it, unless someone decided to press civil charges," Foggy added with a tone of seriousness that was quite impressive considering how hard he'd been laughing just moments before.

"Okay, people. I think we have a winner. I think it's time for the pig to meet his match. Besides, I always did like the Muppets." Matt couldn't be happier. This was going to be great. This was _perfect_.

"May I remind you that you still haven't told me what all this is for," Foggy added.

"All in good time, my friend. All in good time. Now, how about we get some work done around here? We're trying to run a legitimate business, you know." Matt got back up and headed towards his office. Behind him, he could feel Foggy and Dakota shake their heads. Yes, this was going to be great.


End file.
